When I went to Moulins to start as an apprenti in the culinary field, eggs were as familiar to me as any food I knew. I had gathered them by the dozens for my grandmother on the farm, and countless times had broken them into the bowl for the omelettes which my mother prepared so deftly in her black, long-handled omelette pan. Yet on the first Easier Saturday that I spent at the Maison Calondre, I was hardly prepared for the job which 1 was given! Set before me were baskets of eggs to be broken, baskets containing some four or five hundred eggs. For the Easter week-end trade hundreds of pounds of brioche dough would be required and hundreds of eggs had to be broken to produce it. Breaking several hundred eggs was quite different from rolling seven or eight over a lush meadow purple with blossoming violets. Evidemment!
I had never given serious thought to the techniques of handling eggs until I became an apprenti and had to learn to handle great numbers of eggs thriftily and quickly. Perhaps breaking and emptying eggs may seem unimportant, but the contrary is true. Monsieur Calondre rightly insisted that we use a neat craftsmanlike method which would prevent waste.
The classic method of handling eggs is this: Crack the shell on the edge of the bowl and, with half a shell in each hand. empty the contents into the bowl. Run the right thumb around the inside of the half-shell in the left hand to completely clear it of egg white. Fit the other half-shell into this one, and clean it in the same way. Then put aside the tightly wedged shells, To separate eggs, hold the two halves over a bowl and slide the yolk from half to half until all the white has fallen out except the stringy portion attached to the yolk. Remove this by running your thumb against the edge of the shell. Empty the yolk into another bowl and clean both half-shells with the thumb. Trivial? Perhaps. But all the cooking tricks we learn add up to a certain recognizable neatness and precision which is typical of the well-trained chef.
Eggs have a characteristic delicacy which is easily spoiled. An egg may possess a fishy or other extraneous flavor if the hen has supplemented her diet with strongly flavored morsels. This foreign taint may also develop if the egg is stored in the proximity of malodorous foods. One tainted egg can ruin an entire batch of fresh eggs. It is therefore wise to sniff each egg as you break it.
When I was an apprenti we were never permitted to break eggs directly into the large container which held the dozens or hundreds of eggs which were being readied for the day's cooking. Instead, we broke three or four at a time into a small bowl, and made sure each one was sweet and fresh.
Our eggs came from the near-by countryside where the hens ate good grain. It was unlikely that they could be naturally tainted. However, they came to us packed in large baskets of straw from which they sometimes took on an off-odor. It was these oeufs de paille— straw-tainted eggs — which we had to look out for.
“She can't even cook an egg” is a traditional way of describing a really incompetent cook. In one way, an egg is one of the easiest things in the world to cook. But there are pitfalls in egg cookery, as anyone knows who has broken the yolk of a poached egg in lifting it from the water, or suffered a curdled custard or been embarrassed by a separated hollandaise! Eggs are sensitive and must be handled with caution.
Here are some rules for egg cookery: Keep the day's supply of eggs at room temperature. They are then less apt to break in hot water, the yolks and whites mix together more readily, and the whites can be beaten to a greater volume.
Eggs should be cooked slowly, and at moderate temperatures. Overcooking makes eggs tough and leathery in texture.
There are numerous ways of cooking eggs. The following recipes include the basic methods, as well as some traditional variations and garnishes.
EGGS COOKED IN THE SHELL
Les Oeufs à la Coque (Soft-Cooked Eggs)
Cook eggs in simmering water to cover for 3 minutes. Or simmer the eggs for 1 minute, remove the pan from the heat, and allow the eggs to remain in the hot water for 3 minutes.
Les Oeufs Ours (Hard-Cooked Eggs)
Cook eggs in simmering water to cover for 10 minutes. Remove the eggs from the pan and plunge them at once into cold water. This prevents the formation of a dark ring around the yolk and facilitates peeling the egg because a little steam condenses between the egg and its shell.
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